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No. 1 centre Bryan Little, who has missed the last six contests with a foot injury, skated before practice and didn’t report any setbacks. There’s a chance he will be in the lineup on Wednesday night when the Jets kick off a four-game road trip in Montreal.

“He was quite a bit better,” head coach Claude Noel said. “We think he’s around 80%, so we’ll see. It just gets gradually better, so we’re hoping it continues down that road.”

After a slow start to the season, Little had 17 points in 18 games before taking a shot in the foot against the Anaheim Ducks on Dec. 17. It didn’t cause a broken bone, but it still did enough damage to keep him out of the lineup.

Meanwhile, defenceman Dustin Byfuglien will be out for at least another week or so. Noel is hopeful that Byfuglien, who has missed three games with a knee injury, will be able to join the team at the end of its four-game road trip. Winnipeg plays in Montreal on Wednesday, Toronto on Thursday, Buffalo on Saturday and Boston on Tuesday, so the game against the Bruins would likely be his earliest appearance.

ALMOST THERE: Derek Meech, who can play both forward and defence, is getting close to being cleared after his latest knee surgery, but there are mental hurdles he will need to clear first.

On Monday the Winnipeg native practised with his teammates for the first time since his mid-November operation, but he wore a red jersey, which meant he wasn’t allowed to be hit.

“Overall I felt pretty decent,” Meech said. “There’s still some soreness there and some uncertainty, but I think we’re on the right track here now. Overall I felt pretty good.

“A lot of it is mental. There’s still some soreness. I’m just hoping it all starts going in the right direction and mentally I hope I can get over that nervousness or whatever it is.”

Meech had meniscus surgery in his right knee after last season, when he played for the AHL’s Grand Rapids Griffins, but the joint got gradually worse this year and he appeared in only two games before going back under the knife.

“It never fully went to one hundred percent,” he said. “I felt pretty good, but it was never a full hundred. There was a point there — I’m not sure exactly when it happened — it just kept getting worse and worse, and then finally I couldn’t really skate very well on it, so I had to get it checked out.”

IN THE HANGAR: Left-winger Tanner Glass didn’t practise on Monday, but Noel said he simply took a “maintenance day” … Noel believes his team is ready to hit the road after spending nearly all of December in Winnipeg. “When your team’s home for a while we’re driving our wives crazy. Just ask them,” Noel said. “They want to kick us out of the house. They’re ready for us to leave. We’re all ready to go for a little while, eight days.” … Twelve of Winnipeg’s 14 games in January are against Eastern Conference opponents.